


Reasonable Doubt

by faithinthepoor



Series: SVU [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during early Season Two and covers Wrong Is Right, Honour, Closure II  and Legacy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reasonable Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> This part was written by faithinthepoor

Almost everyone she knows told her that she was insane to accept the attachment to SVU. They listened to her explain that this was important to her, that she saw it as the opportunity of a life time and that it would open up countless possibilities but they dismissed everything that she said as though it were the ranting of an imbecile and said that these things didn’t outweigh the fact that it would mean dealing with repugnant people and heinous crimes day in and day out and that it would produce an indelible image that could sink her career rather than advance it. She is willing to risk being forever linked with sex crimes because sex, no matter how hideous, sells and thus guarantees media coverage for her trails and a prominent place in the public eye for herself. As Captain Cragen astutely observed, it also sometimes means live victims, juicy flotsam for the press piranhas to feed on with a frenzy of light bulb flashes and recording devices and symbolic figureheads for her to point to as examples of her relentless pursuit of justice. She is not heartless, she knows that these people have suffered terrible infringements but she can’t change what has happened to them. She can, however, slowly but surely make steps to eradicate future victims. Her role is not to make policy, at least not yet, and although her sound bite would say something about protecting citizens and removing menace from the streets that’s not what her job is about either. Her function is simple to describe but requires finesse to execute, it’s about protecting the DA’s office, it’s so much more than just a win-loss ratio, it means making each and every win look like it’s an advancement for humankind and each loss look like it’s the unavoidable consequence of the regrettable but necessary limitations of the Law. It’s a game and she can’t allow herself to be bogged done with the human faces associated with the proceedings, that may not make her a good person but it makes her a damn fine lawyer.

Her time started perfectly, she couldn’t have scripted it better, she won Cragen over with the very political ambition and zeal that he wanted to doubt her for and silenced two detectives by arranging an impossible warrant with no greater effort than it takes her to breathe. She followed this up by wining her case and collecting a significant scalp in the process. She imagined that her illustrious career path was growing with every step and was starting to think that she may travel further than she had ever dared to aim; suddenly Governor seemed like a pit-stop rather than a destination. Her conviction wasn’t shaken by a loss or an overturned ruling, those things she has managed to harden herself against, it’s foundation wobbled with the first gaze into deep brown eyes.

She knows the sacrifices that are necessary in order to have a successful political career and had been prepared to accept that romantic entanglements are a necessary casualty of her crusade to office. She selected her route long enough ago that there are no youthful indiscretions that are going to come back to haunt her. There is nothing for a background check to reveal that can’t be justified as innocent exuberance or sisterly camaraderie, the most salacious things that they will find are handholding and pecks on the cheek and even those she did no more than was proper, no more than anyone else in her peer group. There are no love poems, no doodlings, no nameless one night stands, nothing that exists in the world outside of her head. She is not frightened or ashamed of the way she feels but she has long understood that she can either act on her feelings or have the career she wants and she has never questioned her decision or her priorities. She has had her share of attractions and infatuations but these are only fodder for harmless fantasies, pleasant diversions that she never allows to detract for her larger and loftier goals. She is by no means celibate but her partner selection is ruthless and has no ties to her feelings – boys and then later men with the right pedigree, the right connections and enough interest in themselves that they don’t notice or aren’t concerned by her level of detachment and disinterest. She is a trophy and they are stepping stones, the relationships were of convenience and she gained enough from them to be willing to pay the price of giving them her body, after all women do that for a whole lot less, but never her heart and never her mind. 

The attraction wasn’t overly concerning, at least not at first, she’s been smitten before and it had passed, she believed that it would again. It didn’t matter that Detective Benson was gorgeous, that she was strong and driven, or that she was smart, both streetwise and educated, a particularly deadly combination, Alex would not be swayed by a near perfect package of the qualities that she desired, she would just use this information to fuel her fantasies. She was able to stick to her plan of emotional asceticism for about a nanosecond and now that she reflects on it, she is impressed that she lasted so long. Even when it became abundantly clear that her inner world wasn’t going to remain tucked away in a box that she could pull out and enjoy at her leisure she was convinced that her renegade thoughts, whilst a definite distraction, would not control her actions – either personally or professionally – but all that fell apart during the Kenneth Cleary trial.

The intense scrutiny and legal invasion of privacy that she supported were justifiable, that was nothing but an ingenious gambit, something that she considers a slick piece of lawyering. The certainty that he was guilty, that was another thing entirely. These were egregious crimes and she wanted a conviction but she had been convinced that he was the perpetrator long before the police had been able to gather any material proof, she would like to put it down to intuition born of experience but she knows that deciding factor was how important this seemed to be to Olivia.

As she watched Mrs Cleary’s meltdown decimate her case in a single kamikaze attack, the pain that she felt wasn’t related to professional failure and the same was true during the dressing down that she received from the judge, she may have been made to feel that a she was nothing more than a child playing dress-up and that she had no place being in a courtroom but her hurt and fear were related to fact that she had let Oliva down. She was terrified of facing her, of seeing disappointment in her eyes and knowing that she was the cause. When Cragen told her that she was being selfish, she wanted to bitch-slap has sanctimonious ass senseless but she also knew that he was right. At least she could take some comfort in the fact that he thought her wallowing was related to a narcissistic injury, she would rather have him think that she was egomaniacal than have him know that she was decompensating because she had ruined any chance that she had of impressing Benson. He was wrong to imply that she didn’t care about the victims, she does care, more than ever before, because now she has to carry her own feelings and Olivia’s expectations. 

When she looks at the crime scene that is what remains of Kenneth Cleary, she is repulsed, not by the sight but by her response – she experiences an overwhelming sense of relief at the notion that she will no longer need to prep the wife for trial. She is standing outside when Olivia exits the Cleary home and tries to watch without watching, she probably shouldn’t look at her at all but people are just as likely to notice a void in her reactions as they are to notice a glut, the tightrope that she walks is treacherous and wavering. The detective looks fine but she is convinced that Oliva is dying inside, that she feels both betrayed by Harper and responsible for her actions. Olivia glances at her, confident and defiant, and she wants to be able to comfort her but that is not her place, they are not friends, they are barely even acquaintances.

After that night her fantasies change, she’s tempted to say that aren’t really even fantasies anymore but they are as divorced from reality as any dreams that she has had in the past, it’s just that these are not as puerile and they are not one dimensional. That’s not to say that they aren’t about sex, they most certainly are, they feature lots and lots and lots of sex but it’s sex in context, sex with feelings, sex that is a beginning instead of an ending. This all very new territory to her and she doesn’t like the way it feels. Doesn’t like the thought that there might be something outside of work and politics that has the potential to make her happy because she has created a situation where the only way that she can have any kind of real relationship would mean the destruction of her career. She is worried that whatever choice she makes she will always be plagued with doubts, always wonder if she made the wrong decision, always question if she was too afraid to be happy. The only way for her to have both her career and Olivia is to have a relationship that is less than whole. She realises that all of relationships to date actually fit this description but it’s never bothered her before. She has been content to have fragments of a life but this would be the reverse of anything that she has had with men, that was something fake that she had to make sure shone in the light, this would be something real that could only exist in shadows and silence. 

It’s kind of pointless to be obsessing over this when she is not even sure that Oliva sees her as anything other than the human face of bureaucratic red tape. She realises that there is chance that she is not the brunette’s type, it’s doubtful but Olivia may actually be heterosexual and even if she isn’t and the tight shirts that enhance her breasts and arms and the haircut are tacit yet bold confessions, a shared sexual preference is a benefit but it hardly guarantees compatibility. The only thing she knows for sure is that she has had crushes on women before, women just as smart and just as sexy as Olivia but it never felt like this and she hopes and fears that means that there is something different about this situation, that maybe the attraction is mutual. She has no idea what to do about her supposition, it’s impossible to investigate Olivia’s feelings without tipping her own hand and that is a risk that she can’t take. She has to content herself with analysing Olivia’s actions, looking for nuances that might represent evidence, however circumstantial, that there is something there, that this is not just something that she has manufactured in her head. This should be easy for her, she is experienced in assessing material to see if it supports a particular case or in forming reasonable arguments to dismiss any evidence to the contrary but this is not like work, this is personal and she keeps getting lost in her emotions. 

The fact that Olivia arches her back and puts her tight sweaters to work, showing her attributes in all of their glory, is incredibly arousing but it may not mean anything, it is not as though they are alone, Olivia does this for the whole world to see which means that the gesture is open to infinite interpretations. When Olivia sits on her desk, without hesitation and without invitation, she looks like she belongs there, it’s the same as when she sits on the desk in the interrogation room, but whether this is an indication that she feels comfortable in her office or it’s just something that the detective does no matter where she is something that Alex can’t speak to. She monitors Olivia’s responses to her own actions, watching to see if eyes linger just a little too long when she removes her jacket, or if they follow her when she enters a room but if there are reactions, they aren’t enough, she wants them to be mountains but she’s not even sure that she sees molehills. Sometimes it all hurts too much and she tires to push it to the back of her mind and forget about the way Olivia Benson makes her feel or what they could be together but it never lasts, there is always something to draw her back in. She woke up this morning and swore that today would be the day that she didn’t obsess about her but then Olivia called her Alex, a casual throw-away that probably means nothing and yet it in that instant, one word was her whole world. She realises that she will never be able to let this go, that even if Olivia never shows the slightest bit of interest in her, it doesn’t matter because this is her life now, for better or worse - she just wishes she knew which one of those it was.


End file.
